


A Guest

by orphan_account



Series: Among The Quiet And Shadows (Magic Series) [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 07:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11398275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Demon summoning on a hot day.





	A Guest

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a hopefully soon-to-be series on alternative takes on Magnus's magic/magic rituals. 
> 
> Inspired by the visuals of Iris's blood oath spell, here's some archaic old-magic demon summoning.

The loft was a glass box of golden light. White-heat fell slantwise across Alec’s back and shoulders, thick heat-laden air coating his hands where the tips of his index and middle fingers hook over the edges of Magnus’s balcony - he pulls himself forward slightly, catching the sun falling in planes of green-white over the river as it cracks the water into sharp light patterns. Closing his eyes and letting the sun turn his inside vision to red he could hear Clary behind him with her usual chatter, and Magnus’s efforts to entertain her questions.

 

He wishes he was here on more casual terms - he’d felt guilty at the thought when Jace had suggested they contact Magnus for help, thinking there must be something they could have done themselves given how busy Magnus had been recently and not wanting to intrude on his work. But after coming to several roadblocks that all seemed to end in the need to summon a certain demon, with no conceivable workaround, Alec had relented to the fact they couldn’t do this alone.

 

The air continued to grow denser. Alec pushed up against his palms and turned himself around. All of Magnus’s furniture was pushed back against the walls, his rugs rolled and placed neatly around the edges of the room. Distilled, pale light flooded in from every window - great blocks of it gathering in heaps in the most unnatural ways across the deep stained oak floors. Magnus was standing centre-floor, dancing the tips of his nails across the dogeared pages of an old book, eyes narrowed in concentration - trying his best to read while fielding Clary and Jace’s questions. Alec walks a few steps before leaning his side against the doorway of the balcony - watching intensely as Magnus’s attention shifted and refocussed on various parts of the page, slick golden glow coming from every angle and settling into the rises and falls of his face too godlike for this sort of weather. He ran a hand through his hair, his mind soaking into the heat around him, wanting to lie on the grey concrete of Magnus’s balcony, wanting to reach out and taste the gold on Magnus’s skin and-

 

“Okay.” Magnus closes the book abruptly, his words carrying in a straight angle directly to Alec who snaps into action, moving off the wall and stepping inside properly. The air is somehow even denser inside, the breeze coming from every open window doing nothing to ease the sweat-sick feeling in Alec’s head. “I haven’t performed anything like this in a long time,” Magnus admits, walking back towards his desk to place his book down among the various other half-prepared documents he was working on, “but it’s relatively simple.”

 

Jace unstuck himself from where he had been leaning in his meticulously casual style against the wall, “So, any chance of it almost killing me this time?”

 

Magnus looks up only long enough to playfully smirk and say “Only if we’re lucky.” Alec ducks his head down to hide his smile.

 

Magnus begins to pace carefully around the room, heels tapping loudly against the bare wood rhythmically. He seemed to be considering something, drifting his fingers through the air like it was water. Alec shifts his weight from one foot to the other as he follows Magnus’s movements with his eyes, refracted half shine light kicking back off Magnus’s rings as they felt the air solid, close and strange colours shaping in Alec’s eyes. Tension stopping dead - Magnus closes his eyes, pulls in a breath and dips his head. Alec, Jace and Clary are all staring on in wait of instruction, explanation. Of any movement.

 

The sound of liquid hitting in slow drips is the only thing that draws Alec’s gaze away from Magnus’s settled expression.

 

Oil-slick tar drips from Magnus’s fingers onto the floor, seems to pool and slide around his feet hypnotically like wet ink. The black seaweed shine lathing colour to sit between the shadows of it. Magnus’s eyes fly open as he brings his hands up to inspect them with a look of wonder in his eyes. Alec feels an urge to look away, look back at the burning sun and scorch his eyes - look up, look up, look up -

 

He doesn’t. Eyes fixed on two points between Magnus’s face and hands. Clary makes a sound like she’s about to start talking but it seems to stall on her tongue and she stops. Magnus dips to the ground in a crouch and begins to smear his fingers against the wood in broad, hectic strokes. Moving around himself, Alec realises that he’s beginning to create a circle - thick sludge appearing mid-palm and slipping through his fingers as he forms it - statically pooling and flowing under his hand. The almost too natural glint throws Alec’s vision but he’s unable to look away.

 

When the circle closes, Magnus stands, with a slight movement of his wrist the dark liquid on his fingers dissipates into smoke around his hand - he stands back, stepping cautiously over his work, and looks on proudly. It’s only when Clary moves and stares in equal parts confusion and wonder at the circle laid out before her that Magnus speaks, walking over to stand shoulder to shoulder as they both look to the floor - “Boundaries.” he says, folding his arms across himself, “The most important part of summoning is context - a boundary gives the ritual meaning and order. A sort of sacred logic that puts the demon into the context of our world and allows it only this space to inhabit. Different contexts for different demons, I’ve found the older the demon the messier things tend to be.” He smiles, vaguely, uncrosses his arms and walks to his desk again to retrieve his chalks.

 

“So,” Clary begins, “last time we were the boundary?”

 

“Technically, yes.” Magnus threw his words over his shoulder as he sorted through his case, “Our memories at least - forming the boundary in the connection of an unbroken circle is just standard orthopraxy.”

 

With his chalk, stark white and contrasted to the wood and inky black, Magnus draws another circle centered, then 8 lines connected the inner circle to the outer. To each new section, he draws a small, simple square. The air hung low around them, Alec feels a pressure in his chest build and rise up his lungs. He feels on the edge of something about to turn feral.

 

His thoughts were cut with Magnus asking them all to stand around the circle. Alec moves automatic, dredging through the swampy warmth and light slowly, breathing in the hot air disgustingly dense. Alec places himself opposite Magnus on the perimeter of the circle.

 

“Everyone ready?” Magnus asked while looking around each of them nodding slightly. He closed his eyes and tipped his head up slightly while Alec fidgets like a caged animal in anticipation. Magnus began to speak, Alec didn’t recognise in which language, it was low in his throat and melodic - it reminded Alec almost of cradle song but unhinged and dislocated in a way that set his bones rigid.

 

The whole world seemed to shift on its side, welcoming a greater gravity into the room. Alec could feel blunt, long claws edge around his arm but nothing had yet entered the room - at least nothing Alec could see. His frantic looks were mirrored by Jace and Clary, each searching their own space for any sight of something crawling among them. The air was almost liquid in Alec’s lungs now, so thick it felt like mud clogged in his throat and he had to hold back the urge to choke.

 

The room splintered - four, five times over into itself. A small shift in view like a reflection refracted and deformed on the surface of the water staring back horrifically placid. Smoke rose from within the smaller circle between them, thick and red-grey and forming small clouds of shapes Alec felt he knew. Blood-known reactions whipped his head around to Jace who was staring back at him terror struck - thick smoke edging at him. And then, and then, and _then_  -

 

Bone-crunch.

 

The sound of something knitting itself together wildly.

 

The air feels concrete-solid and boiling. 

 

Smoke covering a mass of fur and unfurled bone and the smell of gut and gore filling the gaps in Alec’s lungs horridly.

 

Something growls and breathes deep and heavy, pulling the smoke out the room and leaving the terrible sunlight to fall slanted and all too clearly over something tall and teeth filled.

 

“Well,” Magnus says, turning to Jace, impatiently but measured as always - yet almost drowned out by a growl that turns visceral holes through Alec’s mind, “What did you want to ask him?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments and responses to my fics - and any other content I have posted in relation to this fandom! I'm orphaning all my fics here so these are the titles of other Shadowhunters fics I have posted:   
> Errands  
> Terra Incognita   
> Janus


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